So how do I learn?

[Dana Sheets]

Len,

Can you identify resources you use, programs you know about that teach instructors how to teach VSD, online courses or anything like that.

I think many folks might try some of this out if they could a little background first in VSD.

thanks,
Dana

[Colleen]

A few years ago I read a book called 'The Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense' by Suzette Haden Elgin. It was, in my opinion, a well-written book and incredibly helpful. She identifies various attacks and has suggestions on how to handle them. The author has also written more books along those lines, specifically for work, male-female relations, etc. I would recommend this book for the basics.

[gmattson]

Suzette's books and articles are a great place to start. She was our moderator on this forum when it was first created. You might go back to the original posts to see her contributions.

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GEM

[LenTesta]

Dana,
I agree with Sensei on reading Suzette Elgin's book. Although she has no experience in martial arts, she gives very good basic and advanced levels of gentle communication.

When I first started moderating this forum, Kevin Mackie gave me a seminar by Fred Pryor, which is on cassette tape, "How to Manage Conflict, Anger and Emotion." Kevin if you are reading this and you want the seminar tapes back, just drop me an e-mail. This seminar has 6 casette tapes and a manual. A very good learning experience because anger and emotion plays a very important part in verbal self defense tactics.

If you want to read about or listen to verbal self-defense from a martial artists perspective, there are great articles from Darren Laur posted right here on the Uechi-ryu.com articles pages. Also Tony Blaur has a tape for sale which I have extensively reviewed called Cerebral Self-Defense. A very good tape on what you can expect from different kinds of encounters.

Search back in the old threads of the VSD forum and can find some good posts on these tapes and seminars.

Got to get ready to go to open up the BUKA.
Let me know if you can't find the old threads and I will post some of the links.

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Len

[LeeDarrow]

Dana-Sensei,

Suzette Elgin's materials are excellent. I would recommend them highly.

For an overview of the NLP materials I posted about in the other thread, try The Structure of Magic (2 vols) by Richard Bandler and John Grinder. There's some excellent insights into communication styles and how to match them with another person.

Lee Darrow, C.Ht.